Ethnic Eye

The first in-depth treatment of Latino film and video.

This groundbreaking volume is the first to examine the range of Latino media arts, from independent feature production to documentary to experimental video. The essays explore the work of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and Latino film and video artists and address avant-garde practices, queer media, and performance art as well as more conventional film and video representations.



Contributors to The Ethnic Eye provide close readings of a wide variety of films and videos, including Stand and Deliver, American Me, Bedhead, El Mariachi, Carmelita Tropicana, Improper Conduct, Welcome to America’s Finest Tourist Plantation, Border Brujo, Mérida Proscrita, and Spitfire. The essays are unified by a concern with the creation of a common ground for Latino media arts, one that is pan-ethnic rather than narrowly transcribed by race, ethnicity, or national heritage. The volume also provides the first in-depth treatment of such artists as Robert Rodriquez, Ela Troyano, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, and Frances Salomé España. Eclectic in the range of media artists and works considered, The Ethnic Eye is unique in its inclusion of site-specific public art, as well as performance-based works.

Contributors: Marcos Becquer; Charles Ramírez Berg, U of Texas; C. Ondine Chavoya; Marvin D’Lugo, Clark U; Claire F. Fox, Stanford U; Ilene S. Goldman; Carmen Huaco-Nuzum, U of California, Davis; Lillian Jiménez; Alisa Lebow; Scott MacDonald, Utica College; José Esteban Muñoz, New York U; Frances Negrón-Muntaner; Kathleen Newman, U of Iowa; Christopher Ortiz.